Olive Oil Shortcrust Pastry

The highlight of a pie or tart for me lies on the shortcrust pastry. The crumbly and buttery crust, what’s not to like?Especially for a butter lover like myself, naturally I love butter in any shape or form, let it be its solid self, soften, melted or crumbly form of a pastry. I’m impartial to all of the above ha!

I was venturing out to an unknown territory by making shortcrust pastry with olive oil. Will it be as crumbly? Will it be as rich and flavoursome? Will it be as good as the butter version?

I was going to say it would be “healthier” but I love butter too much to give it all up. One thing for sure was olive oil makes a lighter and less oily pastry. I actually tried the olive oil shortcrust pastry on quiche (recipe will be up later this week) which worked perfectly well together. Remember when you work with butter to make shortcrust pastry, it is essential that the butter doesn’t melt when you try to work the butter into the flour. Well, you don’t have this issue with olive oil especially with the heatwave I have been experiencing of late.

Method:-

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour and salt. Then add in olive oil using a fork until resembles breadcrumbs. Gradually stir in cold water (about 1/4 cup as a guide as it may vary) until the mixture forms a dough. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and allow it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. If you are using the dough on the same day, remember to preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/ 375F before working on the dough for the tart pan. Oil a tart pan using a baking brush thoroughly, i.e. bottom and side of the pan. Set aside. Roll the dough flat enough to cover the tart pan (you may need to dust the rolling pin & workstation with some flour to avoid the dough from sticking to them). In order to transfer the flatten pastry from the workstation to the tart pan, wrap the pastry around the rolling pin, center it over the pan and unwrap the pastry. Then try to fit the pastry into the side of the pan without stretching it too much. Use your fingers to press gently into the fluted side of the tart pan. Make sure that the pastry fits snugly where the bottom and side of the pan meet with no air pockets. Also, trim the overhanging dough and use it to “patch up” the dough shortfall area (if any). Lightly brush the surface with some oil and prick the bottom of the tart with a fork. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the crust appears to be slight brown.

Note – You can blind bake the tart shell using the ceramic beads, dry beans or rice. I didn’t blind bake the shell and it puffed a little. So what I’ve done was to flatten the puffed-up bits using the side of a mug (super gently) while it’s hot.

Comments

As a vegan living in rural Northern Tasmania, the bank is definately closed on most vegan alternatives to butter but this recipe gives me back a bit of hope that tarts, pies etc. might just be back on the menu in our household :). Cheers for this liberating recipe 🙂

You can really use any kind of oil in similar proportions, so the range is huge… just play around with it.

I have a friend who is terribly allergic to anything with even the slightest trace of milk in it, so I am always on the lookout for new recipes.

As for your quiche, you can replace the cream in a quiche with evaporated soya milk (you can reduce it yourself so that the consistency is more simmilar to single cream, and you can thicken with arrowroot powder, rice powder or cornstarch. If you are not happy with those, you can use chick-pea flour to substitute for eggs and make the whole thing set.

I have tried to make puff pastry with olive oil and it just does not work. You just get a slightly flakier version of a normal shortcrust pastry and waste a load of time making it.

The problem is the basic physics of puff pastry: When making traditional puff pastry, you are layering your pastry with a solid fat, which puts a relatively thick layer of fat and air between each layer of your pastry, rolling and folding repeatedly.

I would go with a solid vegetable fat, maybe palm or coconut butter, or any other 100% pure vegetable oil that is solid at room temperature.

If you are living in a hot climate, this may not work at all, but if you can get your kitchen cold enough and work on a marble surface, try using solid coconut oil. Keep it in a tub in the fridge and make your pastry as usual. Be quick and work it sparingly.

Yes…there is a way of making oil puff pastry: the Chinese way. The idea is to make layers using two different types of oil dough, being one of them very similar to butter in consistency. Here is a good example:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3mzjA0ah94
I guess that the number of turns will make it just a flaky oil shortcrust of a puffed pastry.

Yes that’s right, I’ve been using the Chinese pastry method to make a kind of puff pastry (doesn’t rise the way normal puff pastry does) that’s really flaky depending on how you handle it. The trick is to mix olive oil with flour for the “oil” layer

Have just made a new friend who is lactose intolerant as well as gluten intolerant, my Hubby is also gluten intolerant, we both love pies and I will now be able to make some pies for our new friend.
Thanks

I made an apple pie using your sweet shortcrust pastry recipe. Instead of using olive oil I used coconut oil – it was delicious! I also used wholemeal flour instead of white flour. So happy to have found a recipe that is vegan and a healthier alternative to store-bought pastry.
I also tried your savory shortcrust recipe using the olive oil – absolutely scrumptious.

Just tried this!! The shortcrust pastry is in the fridge now, hope it will taste great! 🙂 I always try to replace olive oil with butter, cause butter’s not a staple in my pantry and I’m way too lazy to buy one! Hahaha.

Good recipe, thank you. Many years ago (30??) at a Tupperware party I was shown a recipe using oil for pastry. The demonstrator just put all the ingredients in a Tupperware lidded container and literally shook it up for a minute or two. It came out perfect. I lost the recipe which I always called shaker pastry and was not sure of the quantities but I’m now going to try it with your recipe. It is so easy!!

I watched a programme recently about how palm oil harvesting (which is in all vegan margarines) is destroying the habitat for the orang-utans and as I love pastry items was soooo pleased to find this recipe so I am going to make a tofu quiche tonight using it.

I am cooking a meal for my friend’s Mum who has a lot of dietary restrictions and I was wondering if you had ever tried making pastry with olive oil and gluten-free flour? Any idea if it would work? Thanks a lot.

Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I’ve been using it exclusively for quiches since stumbling across it a little while back. For a mushroom-leek quiche, I replaced a little of the olive oil with truffle oil, which worked out quite well.

Hi Kim, I just used your recipe as the base for a vegan pear and frangipane tart. It came out perfect! Substituted the olive oil with a mixture of sunflower and rapeseed oil and added 2 tbsp sugar. It was wonderfully crisp and flaky!

I made my first pie pastry recently and was kind of shocked at how much butter it used – and I love butter! So I was very happy to find your recipe. I just tried it and the instructions were clear and easy to follow. I made it in the food processor and blind baked it using pennies as pie weights – with foil in between the pie and pennies!

Mine turned out a little tough, but I’m sure it’s not you, it’s me. Perhaps too much water? It was successful enough for me to try it again, though. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!

[…] of Michelle Bridges recipes and I found a great recipe for olive oil short crust pastry from the Fuss Free Cooking Blog. It was really easy to make and only needed 30 minutes refrigeration (most butter based recipes […]

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